Creativity in Maths and Beyond
Preps This was an idea I tried out over 8 years ago while working in a pre-preparatory school. I was teaching Year 2 children aged 6/7 years old. The concept emerged as a result of the children not particularly caring for their resources, especially the stationery on the table. "How can I instil a sense of responsibility in these children?" I thought to myself. I had tried the friendly teacher chat followed by several reminders, which then evolved into a less friendlier chat. The problem was that the children generally came from comfortable backgrounds where they needn't worry about taking care of things. If something was lost or broken, it would soon be replaced by a brand spanken new and often shinier model. The idea started with not giving the children any stationery at all at the beginning of the term and instead, giving each child a small amount of monopoly style money. I used an online tool to create the money and named the currency 'Preps'. I t...